Grenfell Tower Tragedy

The NFTMO would like to send our thoughts out to all those affected by the tragic events on Wednesday morning at Grenfell Tower, London. Following those events in the early hours of Wednesday morning we have been contacted by media wanting to know what a Tenant Management Organisation (TMO) is and we hope that this statement will provide some clarity.

In general terms TMOs are small community led organisations, established under the Right to Manage regulations, which enable tenants of council owned homes to provide a range of housing services (repairs, cleaning, caretaking etc.) to those who live there. Many TMOs are known as Co-ops which may better convey the type of organisation they are. Whilst TMOs are separate legal entities run by a board of volunteers they employ a range of professional housing and technical officers to provide the housing services it has taken on.

At this point we obviously would wish to allow the Fire Brigade and other services to be permitted to work without any speculation on our part to discover the cause of the fire and the reasons why it appears to have spread so quickly through the block.

Kensington and Chelsea TMO (KCTMO) is a member of the NFTMO it differs from other TMOs in the country because of its size and the range of work it undertakes on behalf of the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea. KCTMO was established in 1996 and, at the time of its establishment, consisted of all parts of the councilís Housing Department that provided management and day to day maintenance services to residents. It is much larger than other TMOs who, on average, provide a limited range of services to 200-300 homes each. KCTMO provides the full range of housing services to all of the 9,000+ homes in the borough.

KCTMO is a unique TMO due to its size and governance model, being that it runs the entire housing stock for the local council, which the overwhelming majority of TMOs donít.

At this dreadful time our thoughts lie with the residents of the block and the tragedy that continues to unfold.